


How to Buy A House

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, House Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 20:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10521243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: All John (did not) want was to buy a house.Fluffy McFlufferson.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Re-uploading fics has made me realize that I love a match-making Donna.

John Noble was in the market to buy a house. Well, more specifically, John's sister had told him if he didn't get his lazy arse off of her couch and buy a house certain parts of his anatomy would not be safe from her scissors. He had sputtered and complained and shuffled his feet and told her that houses were really not that necessary Donna, the average human is better off sleeping in a tent in order to sync one's body clock to the sun! But she had slapped him upside the head and thrown the latest copy of Realty Today at his face.

Rose Tyler sold houses. She had the highest showing-to-sales record in the history of Bad Wolf Realty and she was very proud of the fact. Which is why she couldn't understand why she couldn't find a house for her latest client. He had been transferred to her after nearly causing Harriet Jones to quit (and Harriet wasn't easily intimidated) and the email Harriet had sent along with his file was astonishingly mean-spirited. Rose had thought Harriet was joking until she met John and was handed his list of one hundred and fifty criteria for a potential house. So far she had shown John eight houses in ten days and he had found fault with every one. She was beginning to understand what had caused Harriet to snap.

The list of criteria had started out as a joke. John had been at the pub with his oldest mate Jack and there had been a lot of alcohol and he woke up the next morning with the list pinned to his jacket. It had been funny to wave it at Harriet and announce he wasn't buying a house that didn't meet every item. It was less funny when she had stormed out of the house leaving him to face the very embarrassed current owners of the house. And when Harriet informed him that she had transferred his case, well, he couldn't resist handing the new realtor the list. Unfortunately he had done so before he had really gotten a good look at her. Her name was Rose, Rose Tyler, and she was in a word: stunning. She was also determined not to take his shit and gave no indication that his ridiculous list was in any way an issue.

Rose hated his list with a fierce passion. It involved such items as "walk-in hot tub" and "steel-enforced garage roof" and "enough room in the master bedroom for an orgy." It had taken all of her will power not to shred the list into little pieces and flush it down the nearest toilet, but she wasn't willing to give him the satisfaction. Even without the list though, John was a headache. He would lie flat on the floor and listen to the pipes, lick the walls, and stick his inquisitive nose in every nook and cranny, including dressers and nightstands, even when she tried to impress upon him that those were not coming with the house and he was being very rude. He would simply flash her his manic grin and be off, with that ridiculous coat flapping behind him and dust coating his really great hair (a girl was allowed to notice these things, okay!) to shimmy through crawlspaces or run his finger along baseboards. Frankly she wasn't sure how much longer she could continue to follow him around while he disparaged a perfectly good house, bemoaning such things as "carpets" and "mortgages."

So far Rose had shown him three houses that would make very adequate living spaces. His reasons for turning them down were really quite valid, or so he tried to explain to Donna, though the knowing look she sent him out of the corner of her eye was disconcerting. John harrumphed and left to wander the streets and convince himself that torn wallpaper, nicked paneling, and a distinct smell of peonies were proper reasons for not signing a contract with Bad Wolf. And if his mind wandered a bit to the way Rose looked when she was glaring at him or the way she shook her head at him when he sampled the current owner's jam or when she actually laughed at his joke about cat nuns, well, it was late and he'd had a long day.

Sometimes Rose thought she might actually be losing her mind. Why else would she have allowed John to take her hand to help her out of the unexpected rotted hole in the latest house's porch (even she had to admit the paper on that place had been a little misleading) or why she hadn't corrected the slightly deaf couple who had told her and John how cute their kids would be and how they hoped their little cottage was going to such a nice couple. No, she was truly losing it and she just needed to turn over John's file to Martha and wash her hands of the whole affair. And she would, she absolutely would, she just had one or two more houses to show him and then she would be done. Really.

It was six months after Harriet had transferred his file to Rose when John walked into the latest house on her list. He didn't need to hear Rose's quiet "wow" to know that this was the house that was actually going to fit every single one of his stupid criteria. It was beautiful without being imposing, charming without being rustic, spacious without being massive; everything he was searching for and nothing he wanted. He wasn't giving in without a fight though and he went through every bit of that house with a critical eye, searching for signs that something, anything was wrong and he could square his shoulders with an "I told you so" and get a text from Rose the next day that she had another place to show him. 

There was something oddly heart-breaking about watching John try to find something wrong with the house. She knew there wouldn't be - she'd come to see it with a subcontractor the day before - but she couldn't help wishing John would succeed in finding something. As soon as the thought crossed her mind she brushed it off. This house - christened TARDIS Manor by its previous owners - was absolutely everything John wanted and then some. If he didn't want the house, she would buy it herself. Rose watched as he spun around and it occurred to her that she may have spoken that last bit out loud. His eyes narrowed as he advanced towards her, a predatory gleam in his eye that she wasn't sure how she felt about.

The moment Rose mentioned that she wanted to live in this house, John felt the heavens open up and speak to him (and he may not have believed in such things, but he did believe in Rose). He walked towards her slowly, determined to lay his case, stopping with one hand on the wall beside her head. Despite the aggressiveness of his pose, his heart was racing and he could barely squeak out the words "together" and "if you want." She must have wanted because her lips were on his and his tongue was in his mouth and he was lost to the taste and feel of Rose Tyler.

Afterwards John always said that he had been debonair and polished about the whole thing and Rose always said that she had been cool and collected, but however it happened, TARDIS Manor was signed for by John and Rose Noble and Donna finally got her couch back.


End file.
